


When the dawn comes

by ohmyfae



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Age Difference, Angst with a Happy Ending, Identity Issues, M/M, Power Imbalance, Reincarnated Noctis, Reincarnation, endgame spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-03 05:21:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14561787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyfae/pseuds/ohmyfae
Summary: Some time after the chosen king brought back the dawn, Ignis Scientia, Governor of Lucis, finds that he is finally able to live with the weight of his loss and the unspoken feelings between himself and Noct. However, that uneasy peace is disrupted when a young man appears at the Citadel, determined to become Ignis' personal Crownsguard. A young man with a familiar face, who bears a secret that will throw Ignis' life into chaos.





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: Yes, there’s an age difference in this fic. While Lux is legal before anything happens, and his memories of being Noct muddle things a bit, the age gap is still pretty big. If that’s a dealbreaker, don’t read this. Mind the tags.

The King of Light’s body was laid to rest in a circle of upturned earth behind the Citadel, overlooking the distant sea. Seeds from Tenebrae, stored in secrecy during the years of Ruin, were carefully planted in a spiral around the tombstone. At dawn, the crystals that framed Noct’s name flared with the light of the sunrise, casting spots over the earth. 

Ignis was told that it was truly beautiful.

“Maybe he and Luna are together in the beyond,” Gladio said, when the last sylleblossom seed was planted. 

“Yeah,” Prompto said, his voice subdued. “They deserve to be happy.”

Ignis said nothing. 

He remained after the others had gone, waiting as the sunlight crawled up the length of the tombstone. His body felt cold, detached, as though he were traveling with the sun, lifting out of his skin to trail listless across the clear sky. In a few months, the sylleblossoms would bloom, and pilgrims would start to wander to the grave, late witnesses to the legend Noctis had become. 

A cool wind blew in from the sea, and Ignis turned from it, marching across the cobbled path to the world beyond.

Ignis’ uncle once told him, when he was young and miserable and mourning the loss of parents he’d never met, that grief faded with time. Ignis suspected now that he was only trying to be kind. Grief was water over stone, seeping through cracks and pores, expanding them, becoming a part of them. Throwing himself into the rebirth of a scattered, devastated world didn’t make Ignis too busy to mourn Noct, because the loss of him bled through regardless. It was like missing the count of the Citadel steps, or rolling his cane over a gap in the sidewalk—A moment of weightlessness, of sudden, gut-clenching panic. _I’ve forgotten something. Something is lost._

There were days when it hurt less. Days when Ignis didn’t even breathe his name, didn’t go to the seaward side of the city and consider calling his chauffeur to take him to Galdin. Days when Ignis smiled dryly at the occasional dig from Prompto to find someone to cook for, when he sat and drank with Prompto and Gladio as though there weren’t an emptiness between them, a wheel missing, a limb broken.

Iris proved to be the greatest comfort in those early years. She was elected mayor of Lestallum shortly after the dawn, and served on the Council of the new Lucis, but she made a point to visit Insomnia as often as she could. She’d walk with Ignis, then, forcing him to emerge from his office, dragging him out into the sunlight. 

“Gladio wants to put you up as a nominee for Governor,” she said one day over breakfast at a local café. Her voice was lower, with the hint of a rasp that came from hours of shouting down Crownsguard recruits. “I think most of the Council would agree.”

“Most?” 

Iris tapped her fingers on the table. “Well, you can’t please everyone.”

Ignis smiled behind his coffee. Iris’ finger dragged along the tabletop, the squeak of plastic faint under the chatter of café patrons. 

“Do you ever… Do you ever wish you’d told him?”

Ignis set down his coffee. A car roared down the street beside them, probably one of the older models from outside the wall, and the steamer at the espresso bar hissed softly. Someone knocked over a cup, and there were rushed footsteps, pained apologies, the slap of cloth on tile. 

“Ignis.” Iris’ fingers brushed his, and he jerked away. “We always were too much alike, you know.”

“We should go,” Ignis said. He stood, reaching for his cane. “Gladio will kill me if he hears I’ve monopolized you.”

“Sure,” Iris said. Her chair scraped against the floor. “Sure, Iggy, let’s go.”

Years later, when he sat in the new Governor’s suite of the Citadel with his badge of office on his lapel, Ignis told her. 

Still, even when his hair started to gray at the temples, even when he grew so used to the streets of Insomnia that he could sleepwalk through them without a second thought, Ignis found his mind drifting back to Noctis. At forty-six, he caught himself reaching for his phone, Noct’s number on his lips, and had to lock his office door and lean against it, breath strained in the mid-morning quiet. 

At forty-nine, Ignis was a year into his second term, Insomnia and Lestallum were starting to branch out to surrounding regions, and Gladio informed him in no uncertain terms that the Crownsguard was going to need a complete overhaul if he wanted to take diplomatic trips out of town. 

“There’s a breach in our security,” Gladio said, sitting heavily in the chair on the other side of Ignis’ desk. “Some punk kid’s been breaking in for the past week or so. Nearly tripped over him this morning.”

“A protester?” Ignis asked. Gladio grunted. 

“Nah. Wants to join up. I told him to come back when he doesn’t look like a beanpole on legs.”

Ignis smiled. “Poor thing. You should give him an interview, at least, if he’s so determined.”

“I don’t know.” Gladio’s voice took on a wary edge, dragging out his vowels in a faint drawl. “I think we’re better off without.”

“How so?”

“Can’t say.” Gladio’s chair squeaked as he shifted, and Ignis raised his one good brow. “It’s just a feeling.”

Ignis shrugged and stood, gathering his tablet and visor off the desk. “I’ll trust your judgment, then,” he said. “But in any case, I expect the boy is unlikely to return.”

 

 

The throne room, despite Gladio, Prompto, and Ignis’ private misgivings, could not stay cordoned-off for long. None of them set foot on the threshold since the Dawn, but tour guides led quiet groups through on weekends, pointing out the memorial to King Regis and Clarus Amicitia, the architecture from the second century, the throne _where it happened._ Ignis always made sure to skirt around that floor when tours were going on, as gawkers would occasionally stop him in the hall to ask, in various stages of awe, what it was like.

He answered them honestly once, when the memory was still raw and the pain of it lanced through him as he spoke, teeth gritted and jaw clenching. Prompto had pulled him aside later, always the mediator, and poured him drinks while Ignis railed against _tourists_ who thought the death of their king was some kind of _show._

“He isn’t real to them,” Prompto had said, topping off Ignis’ glass. “Not the way he is to us.”

It was easier, in the end, for Ignis to avoid the throne room entirely. He only passed the wide doors when he absolutely had to, and he tucked his cane under his arm as he passed, unwilling to hear the slight echo that he’d come to associate with the sunken doorway. 

Which was why, on a chilly morning at the start of June, Ignis walked toe-first into a young man sitting in front of the throne room doors. 

“Shit!” 

Ignis stepped back as feet scrambled on tile, hands scraping at the frame of the door. “Dreadfully sorry,” he said, but he couldn’t hide the downward twist of his mouth. Who camped out in doorways in the Citadel? Some office worker, perhaps, worn ragged from a late-night shift? “Did I hurt you?”

“No, I’m.” The person at the door had a slight drawl, reminiscent of Leide, but there was a cadence to their words that felt oddly familiar. “I’m fine. Damn, your shoes are sharp. Sir.”

“The better to kick you with, apparently. You do know,” Ignis said, walking past them, “that there’s a break room two floors down. With a couch.”

“Oh. Uh. Yeah, well.” Footsteps pounded after him, and Ignis sighed, pulling out his cane. It was a surefire way to make sure people kept their distance, as most were too anxious about getting in the way to bother him. Not, apparently, this person, who walked right up to Ignis, creating a spot of warmth at his side. “I don’t work here, actually.”

Gods, a tourist. “Tours are on the weekends,” Ignis said. 

“Ain’t that, sir. I mean. It isn’t that.” The stranger cleared their throat. “I thought you might help me. Or, well, I thought I might help _you._ ”

Ignis sighed and stopped. “Young…” he paused. “Man? I don’t want to assume.”

“Man’s right,” the stranger said. “Lux, actually.”

Lux. That made him one of the children born after the Dawn, then. The number of Luxes, Auroras, Lucifers, and Dawns that Ignis had met in the years after the daylight was restored was frankly staggering. The population of the world had doubled in the course of a year, and most of it was now named after the sun. 

“A pleasure,” Ignis said. “But if you have a complaint, I’d suggest you take it up with my assistant in room 4B—“

“No, sir,” Lux said. “Sorry, sir. Thing is, I’ve tried all that. But I’m seventeen, and my birthday ain’t for—isn’t for another couple of months, and y—you all have this rule about Crownsguard now…”

“Oh, dear.” Ignis’ lips twitched. “You’re the boy who’s been bothering poor Gladiolus.”

“Not bothering,” Lux said. “I’m just persistent. The security here’s terrible. You know, no one even asked me where I was going? I just walked right in. I could’ve been an assassin, or a terrorist, and here you are walking around without a bodyguard.”

“I appreciate your concern,” Ignis said, “But I can take care of myself well enough.”

“I know.” It was maddening, really. Lux’s voice teetered on the edge of familiar, but Ignis couldn’t quite figure where he’d heard it before. “But it does nothing for your consequence.”

Ignis smiled. “And you would?”

“Yes, sir.” Lux shifted closer. “Sir, give me a chance. That’s all I ask. I know I’m young, but I’m a natural with a sword, and I have the best eye in Hammerhead. I can—“

“Very well.”

“Sir?” 

Ignis squared his shoulders. “You heard me. Very well. We can run a preliminary test of your skills right away, if you’re willing. There’s a training hall on the ground floor reserved for myself and senior members of the staff.”

It was a cruel thing to do, Ignis knew, and he grimaced at the young man’s muffled whoop of excitement as they turned for the elevator. But persistent or not, Lux spoke with the slightly starstruck tone of a man with a head full of glorious tales of honor and bravery and innate skill, and the Crownsguard wasn’t a place for a dreamer. He needed to learn the hard way that you couldn’t just walk up to the governor of Lucis and obtain a position through sheer will alone. 

“You say you’re familiar with a sword?” Ignis asked, as they entered the elevator. Ignis pressed the first floor button automatically, hardly needing to brush over the worn-down braille on the side. “Were you formally trained?”

“Sort of.” Lux was bouncing on his heels, sending small vibrations along the metal floor. “Hunters taught me when they could. A lot of it was a learn-as-you-go kind of thing.”

“Ah.”

The door buzzed, and they stepped out into a wide hallway with arches opening up into the Crownsguard training yards. Ignis led the man a few yards down, then pulled a key from his jacket pocket and unlocked a set of industrial doors. The smell of old, polished marble and plastic training mats was the same as it had been when _Ignis_ was seventeen, and he stepped into the midst of it with a wry smile. 

“Gods,” Lux said. 

“There’s a rack of swords on the far wall,” Ignis said, striding to the corner. “Find one with a balance that suits you and wait at the dotted line.”

“Sir?”

Ignis ignored him. He set his cane down against a low rack, and pulled out a new one, with the sharp, spiked head of a dragon at the hilt and a reinforced sheath. The blade within was heavy, longer than the knives Ignis was used to, but the years of Ruin had taught him how to improvise. He took the sword-cane in hand and walked to the center of the room, standing in silence as Lux fumbled with the weapons rack on the wall. 

At last, the young man’s footsteps faltered some ways away, scuffing on the mat beneath them. “Sir,” he said. “What am I supposed to do now?”

“Now,” Ignis said, lifting his chin just a fraction. “You attack.”

There was a short, heavy silence. 

“Hold on,” Lux began. “I can’t just—“

“Pardon?” Ignis tilted his head. “Did I hear you say you _can’t?_ Oh, dear, the state of Crownsguard hopefuls in this day and age…”

Lux took a step forward. Ignis would have felt it better if he’d taken off his shoes, but he could still hear the squeak of the mat, the groan of foam as Lux staggered towards him. Ignis propped both hands on the top of his cane and waited. 

“Aren’t you gonna…” Lux swallowed audibly. Oh, _bless._ “Uh, move?”

“Do I need to?” Ignis asked. 

Lux lunged. There was enough hesitance in his step for Ignis to be warned well ahead of time, and all Ignis had to do was shift his weight to avoid the thrust of Lux’s sword. He righted himself again, and raised an eyebrow. 

“Oh, come on,” Lux said.

Ignis smiled. “I do believe I felt a breeze just now.”

Lux came at him high, his sword whistling through the air. Ignis sidestepped him, but instead of stumbling as a novice might have done, Lux withdrew. Good. At least the boy had a sense of balance. Ignis resumed his stance, and heard Lux’s teeth click together. 

Footsteps. The rustle of cloth. Ignis sighed and flicked the cane sideways, smacking Lux’s knees and sending him tipping onto his back. Lux rolled, scraping the mat with his hand to steady himself, and let out a huff of breath that could have been a laugh. 

“Okay,” he said, and lunged again. This time, he moved with confidence, and Ignis had to unsheathe his sword to defend himself. He felt Lux’s sword slide against his blade, registering the length and weight of it, and struck it hard, testing Lux’s grip. Lux didn’t wince or gasp, so his hold on the hilt had to be just loose enough. Lux rapped his sword back, a playful tap, then tried to twist it out of his hands. Ignis smirked. 

It had been years since he dueled anyone properly. His last fight, his last _true_ fight, with naked blades and practice mats and no one around to watch, had been with Noctis a few weeks before their departure. Noct was fond of grandstanding, of outrageous new tactics that _looked_ more impressive than they felt, but when it was just him and Ignis, his moves became shorter, fiercer, more economical. Lux didn’t have the same precision as Noct, of course, but there was something in his movement that _felt_ like him, just enough for Ignis to guess where he planned to strike. 

He was sweating, falling back under Lux’s attack with a grin just short of wild, his breath coming short and harsh under the clash of their swords. Ignis let the young man advance along the length of the training hall, and at the last moment, just as he felt the end of the mats rise under his heel, Ignis slid Lux’s sword to the side, ducked close, and grabbed the hilt with his free hand. 

“Excuse me,” he said, and wrenched the sword out of Lux’s grip. Then, just for effect, he hooked a foot under Lux’s ankle. The young man went down, striking the mat with a groan, and Ignis drew back. 

“Dirty trick,” Lux panted, but he sounded pleased, his breath hitching in a laugh. “Are all your canes actually swords?”

“Gods, no, you can’t walk with these.” Ignis set Lux’s sword down, then grimaced. “Damn, I left my sheath somewhere…”

“I’ll get it.” Lux didn’t rise. He rolled across the mat, then heaved himself back to Ignis, shoving the sheath in his free hand. “That was amazing, sir. Mr. Scientia.”

“Please, call me Ignis,” Ignis said, before common sense could take over. He coughed. “In any case, you certainly have an aptitude for the sword.”

“Yeah, I’m good like that.”

Ignis froze. 

“Aw, hell. Sorry, I’ll tone it down.” The drawl was back in full force, but Ignis couldn’t shake the unease settling into his bones. He tried for a weak smile, and held out a hand. 

“A little confidence never hurt anyone,” he said. Lux took his hand, and Ignis helped him to his feet. “Would you…” He quietly rearranged his daily schedule in his mind. “I have the next hour free. Come to my office, and we can discuss your options over a drink.”

Lux sucked in a short breath. “Yes, s—Ignis. Yeah. That’d be nice.”

Ignis’ office was on the twenty-third floor, lavishly decorated with thick hangings and paintings from the dawn of the modern era, and Lux only just stopped himself from whistling when they entered. Ignis draped his jacket on a hook by the door and frowned at the prickle of sweat on his back; Of course, he just _had_ to show off by not bothering to take it off before the fight. He heard another intake of breath behind him, but assumed Lux must have noticed the wide windows overlooking the city. 

“Water?” Ignis asked. 

“Thanks.” Lux sat in what sounded like the least comfortable chair in the room, one foot tapping on the carpet. Ignis went to the small fridge by his desk and pulled out two bottles. He passed one to Lux and sat opposite him, sinking into the cushions of his small couch. 

“You said you worked with the Hunters for a while,” he said. 

“Uh, sort of.” Lux fiddled with the cap of his drink. “I’m one of the Hammerhead kids.”

Ignis hummed. The Hammerhead kids, as they called them, were an unfortunate side-effect of the years of Ruin. Those who couldn’t bear the thought of raising a child in the dark tended to leave them on Takka’s doorstep at the old diner, trusting Takka, or one of the Hunters, to take care of them until a home could be found. Ignis had helped Takka with more than one sobbing toddler discovered in the middle of the night, but when he moved into the Citadel, the daily troubles of Hammerhead faded into the background. He should have remembered. He should have sent someone.

“My parents left me a few hours after Dawn broke,” Lux said. “Takka said I was probably born when the sun rose.” Ignis frowned, and Lux leaned forward, speaking in a breathless rush. “But it’s okay, really. Takka and the guys looked after me, but Takka had to move because of his leg, so he left me with someone. She was nice, but I mostly just, you know, hung around. It isn’t as bad as it sounds.” 

“You have no one?” Ignis asked. 

“I was kind of hard to deal with, as a kid,” Lux said. “But I know how to fight, and I’ve always wanted to be Crownsguard. _Your_ Crownsguard.”

Ignis propped his chin on a hand. “Why mine, exactly?”

“Because you need one.” Lux’s leg stopped jiggling. The chair creaked as he leaned further still. “Every king of Insomnia had a shield. Or a bodyguard. Someone to be there, to watch for them when they’re too busy, to—“

“I don’t need a shield,” Ignis said. “And I’m not a king.”

“I know. But you still need someone.”

“Awfully presumptuous of you,” Ignis said. 

“I’m young,” Lux said. “I’m allowed. Just give me a chance, sir.” He swallowed. “Ignis.”

There. The way he said his name, the way his voice seemed to lower, going soft, speaking as though he were forming a spell or a prayer. _Ignis._ A shiver ran over Ignis’ skin, pricking the hairs of his arms. 

“A chance,” he said. “You’ll have that. Tomorrow—You’re free tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

“Report to Gladiolus Amicitia at noon. You know his office. If you can survive a few hours in his presence, then perhaps you’ll proceed with basic training.”

The chair screeched. “Really?” Lux—Gods, was the boy _kneeling?_ Lux took his hand in both of his, and Ignis felt the rough scrape of callouses under his fingers. “Thank you. You won’t regret this, I promise.”

Ignis smiled faintly, unable to admit that he already did. “We shall see.”


	2. Chapter 2

342 Willow Street was a small, blocky home built shortly before the fall of Insomnia, with a bland, off-white paint job and paneled siding that stained brown after the first spring thaw. It had no power, no water, and no chance of retaining heat. There was a leak in the roof covered by a sagging trash bag, a window with a panel missing by the kitchen, and a charcoal firepit surrounded by a circle of ash. 

Lux parked his bike behind a tangle of morning glories creeping over the fence. He’d picked that house for the view; It sat at the top of a small hill, where Noct could see the ruined skyscrapers and empty high rises of the city, crawling with construction crews and shining in the light of the sunset. 

Abandoned houses were everywhere in Insomnia. Even almost two decades after the Dawn, there just weren’t enough people to fill them all, so great swathes of the city sat in silence, forgotten by all but the weeds. It was easier to squat in one of the better-preserved houses than pay rent on one closer to the Citadel, so when Lux left Hammerhead at sixteen, he’d gone straight to Willow Street.

He whistled softly, and a fat white cat jumped down from the windowsill, round belly rocking as she padded through the overgrown grass. Lux bent to lift her into his arms. 

“Hey, Murdercake,” he said. “You hungry?”

Murdercake purred like a broken motor, rubbing her face under Lux’s chin. He grinned and pushed the door open with a foot. 

“Got my ass kicked by the Governor today,” he said, letting Murdercake drop from his arms as he stepped into the living room. The cat went to the cabinet under the sink, crying piteously, and Lux obediently opened it. She climbed in while he grabbed her bag of cat food. 

“It was great,” he said. “I mean, getting your ass kicked isn’t _great,_ but the fight was…” He poured kibble into Murdercake’s bowl, and she emerged in a flash of white to hunker down at his feet, horking it down. “I don’t know. It felt _right._ ”

The cat just grunted as she inhaled her dinner. “Oh, well.”

When Lux went outside, he found his other cats, Coeurl and Cookie, waiting by the bed of wild mint at the door. They fell on their food while Lux wrapped half a piece of salted meat in foil, which he balanced on a wire grille over the charcoal fireplace. He ate in silence, watching the fire while his cats fought for space on his lap, and tried not to think of the empty spaces around him, of the silence, of the nagging feeling that even with smoke spiraling into the night sky, something wasn’t quite right.

“Tomorrow,” he said, scratching Coeurl behind the ears, “I’ll be Crownsguard. And soon enough, personal Kingsglaive to the—”

_Call me Ignis,_ Mr. Scientia had said, with that bewildered, almost half amused look on his face. Not Governor. Not Mr. Scientia. Not Sir. 

“To Ignis,” Lux said, into the dark, and smiled. “ _Ignis._ ”

 

-

 

“Something’s off,” Gladio said, taking a spot at Ignis’ right shoulder. It was always easy to sense Gladio coming by the perfume—or cologne, depending—from his cycle of lovers, lingering on his jaw and neck. He had around four, from Ignis’ latest count, though how they all came to a peaceful resolution to share was beyond him. The latest must have visited for lunch, judging by the floral scent wafting down the hall in Gladio’s wake. 

“Trouble in the garden of paradise?” Ignis asked. 

“What? No. It’s the new kid.” Gladio was wearing his formal robes—They brushed against Ignis’ shoulder as they walked, the leather straps of his cloak rustling like the feathers of a strange bird. “He’s…”

“Did he fail your exam?”

“No. He passed. It ain’t that.” Gladio grunted and scraped at his beard. “He looks kind of… different. That’s all.”

“Goodness, Gladio, I didn’t think you were so shallow.” 

Gladio grunted again. “It’s hard to explain. He checks out, though. I got him upstairs tryin’ on a new uniform, ‘cause I think he’s been wearing that same shirt the last three times he’s been here. And he, uh. He requested working on your security detail, but I said he’ll need training for that.”

Ignis nodded. 

“So he’s, uh. He’s gonna be working as your gopher instead.”

“Gladio.” Ignis stopped, holding out a hand to Gladio’s chest. “You didn’t.”

Gladio’s voice was little more than a mumble. “Hard to say no,” he said. “Something in his eyes, I guess.”

Ignis sighed. 

Lux appeared in Ignis’ office a few hours later, smelling of soap and fresh linen. The Crownsguard stationed at Ignis’ door laughed and ruffled his hair as he entered, and he hovered at the door, shifting awkwardly in his new boots. 

“At ease, if you can,” Ignis said. He paused the audio recording of a report from Iris, and heard the sharp _shuff_ of Lux tugging at his jacket. “How does it feel?”

“Like it’s missing something,” Lux said. “A cloak, maybe, or some gold chain, right here.”

“You’ll have to survive without,” Ignis said, hiding a smile. “Come, I have a report I need you to deliver.”

He kept Lux hopping for most of the afternoon, running up and down the winding stairs between offices, polishing weapons in the warehouses, and picking up the officers’ private gym. After a few hours, he dismissed him to the mess hall and settled in for a long night, plugging in his earbuds to listen to a stilted recording of the annual crop report. 

When his head finally started to throb with exhaustion, Ignis locked up and took the elevator to his room on the third floor, where he heated up leftover soup on the stove, put on an audiobook, and lay out on the balcony to eat. The night was uncommonly cool, with soft breezes teasing his upturned face, and he nearly drifted off twice before it struck him. He jerked awake, sloshing cold soup over his hands, and swung his legs down from his outdoor coffee table. 

The Citadel had always been a maze. Every floor looked the same, every turn and nondescript door a mirror of the ones above and below, every stair twisting too many times to make a proper count. Ignis had found senior Crownsguard soldiers wandering in a panic on the upper floors, scanning their phones for the small, decidedly unhelpful map on the company website. _Prompto_ once got an entire tour group lost on the way to the public bathrooms. But Lux…

All day, Lux had been sent to half the major offices in the Citadel. He delivered missives and reports to people in public offices, to the gallery, to tucked-away records rooms and training yards. He’d covered most of the Citadel on his first day, and despite the maze, despite no one having given him so much as a tour, he hadn’t gotten lost _once._

 

\---

 

Aurora  
Age 21  
Part-Time Sales Associate, Hammerhead  
 _We were friends. Or I think we were friends. He was nice, anyways. We grew up together, sort of. Takka set up a bed for him in the back of the diner because he kept, you know. He had nightmares. A lot of the kids did, but he didn’t grow up in the dark like most of us. Maybe he overheard people talking about daemons, and he just… let his imagination take over. I hope he’s okay. He talked a big game about going to Insomnia and being Kingsglaive, like the Heroes of Eos, but… He’s still just Lux, you know? It worries me. I wish he’d write. Or call. Or anything._

Cindy Aurum  
Age 53  
Owner of Hammerhead Garage  
 _Oh, I remember Lux. He’s the one who caused all that trouble at the trench a few years back. [Indecipherable] Runnin’ after some damn kid in the middle of the night, turns out he’d been holin’ up in the old mine, where them kings were buried. Said he didn’t wanna bother nobody._

**Why would he say that?**

_Ain’t hard to figure out. All them kids were underfoot those days. Most got adopted out, but Lux was one of the tricky ones. Didn’t sleep much. Not good at talkin’ to people. Sure liked the cats, though; He ran off with one when he went to Insomnia last year. How’s he doin’, anyways? He make it into the Crownsguard yet?_

Takka Bradham  
Age 67  
Hunter HQ Supervisor  
 _Hell, that kid. I thought I was gonna lose him, the first few weeks. His mama dropped him off right after the sun rose, if you can believe it. It’s bad enough when your folks don’t want you ‘cause the daemons are out and the world’s gone to hell, but when they don’t want ya on the day it all comes back? No wonder he kept running off._

Cid Sophiar  
Age 104  
 _Damn, Prompto, you think I can tell any of those little shits apart?_

Talcott Hester  
Age 34  
Hunter  
 _Yeah, I remember him. I saw him before he left for the city, training with one of the other Hunters. His hair’s longer, and his nose was wrong, but he looked like him. Just like him._

**Like who?**

_Prince Noctis. Shoot. King Noctis. Gods, even after all this time, I still can’t… I have to go, okay? I hope that helped. I sure hope it helped._

Ignis sat in the empty Council room, head in his hands, his visor folded up at the edge of the table amidst a pile of reports. Prompto sat a few chairs down, tapping his foot on the chair opposite, while Gladio flipped through a stack of photos. 

“You found _no one?_ ” he asked. 

“Iggy, I talked to everyone in Hammerhead.” Prompto drummed his hands on the table. “Literally everyone. He didn’t act like an agent. No one approached him before he left. There was someone watching him pretty much constantly, because he kept disappearing before—“

“And he couldn’t have been approached then?” Ignis asked. “The boy knows the Citadel as well as Gladio and I do. He resembles… He looks like…”

“He has Noct’s face,” Gladio said at last. “Sort of. Talcott’s right, though, his nose is crooked. Probably broke it.”

“A charming young man,” Ignis said, “who looks like someone we—someone we lost, who conveniently ingratiates himself into the Crownsguard… Could he be from Altissia? Niflheim?”

“Niflheim’s too small,” Gladio said. “They don’t play the long game.”

“Besides, their spies all act the same,” Prompto said. “And Altissia just sends us backhanded compliments. I swear, you level a city _one time_ and suddenly you’re on the shit list.”

“He’s in _someone’s_ pocket,” Ignis said. “He has to be.”

“Or it’s something else,” Prompto said.

Ignis waited for Prompto to follow-up with something practical. Lux was a fan. A stalker. An unfortunate collection of coincidences. Anything but the small, twisty thought in the back of his mind, digging into the ache of grief that Ignis tried to keep at bay. 

“He was born on the day Noct died,” Prompto said.

“So were a number of others, I’m sure.” Ignis was speaking too fast. His heart was drumming hard enough that he wondered how the others couldn’t hear it, close as they were, and he fumbled with his tablet. “In the meantime, I suggest we give him what he wants. He wants to be my personal guard? Then he will. I’ll plant false information in my office, something time-sensitive, and when whoever he’s working for shows their hand, we’ll know.”

“And if he tries to hurt you?” Gladio asked. 

“And if he’s—“ 

“I can take care of myself,” Ignis said, before Prompto could finish. “But we’ll send up another guard to tail us. Someone you trust, Gladio. And we’ll offer him housing closer to the Citadel, somewhere he can be monitored.”

“Somewhere with running water, too,” Prompto said. Ignis winced. 

“Yes. Maybe we should… Give him an advance. If we pay him well enough, perhaps he can be swayed, and this farce won’t be necessary.”

He stood, well aware that Prompto was getting ready to interrupt. “Send him to my office when you have the time, Gladio. I trust we’ll all keep what was discussed here within these walls. Thank you.” 

When he left, his heels clicking on the tile, he tried to convince himself that he wasn’t running away. But even so, he could still feel Prompto’s gaze on the back of his head, fierce and hot enough to burn. 

Lux entered his office in a rush an hour later, disrupting the guards and slamming the door against a marble pillar. “Mr. Scientia! You can’t be serious?”

Ignis forced himself to smile. “You wanted a chance to prove yourself,” he said, “and Gladiolus does tell me that I’m in dire need of added security. Consider this a probationary trial.”

“Holy shit. I mean, sorry, thank you.” Lux was standing in front of him, bending down so their heads were the same level. The warmth of his hands hovered over Ignis’, then drew away. “And an apartment? Really?”

Ignis shrugged. “It’s only right. There are too many empty buildings in the district to let them go to waste. Now, did Gladio send you here to celebrate, or was there a job you were meant to do?”

“Oh. _Oh,_ right. Where do you want me to—“

“Corner of the room, Lux. By the window.”

“Right. Thank you. Right.” There were hurried footsteps, and the creak of Lux standing to attention. “And I just… stand here?”

“Until it’s time to go out, yes,” Ignis said, and raised a hand to his mouth. He was smiling despite himself, too bemused to maintain an air of caution. He smoothed out his lips and turned back to his tablet, asking for the first of his false reports. He barely listened to them as the recorded voice on his device spoke into the quiet room, thinking instead of what Talcott had said to Prompto in his interview. 

_He looked like him._

_Prince Noctis._

_He has Noct’s face,_ Gladio had said. 

Ignis ran a hand through his hair, carefully schooling his own face to blankness. Gods above, who _was_ this young man, with his desert drawl and his earnest enthusiasm? And what was he after?


	3. Chapter 3

Lux was dying.

The dream always started the same. A wide, empty room, pillars bracing the walls on either side. His hands slipping down the hilt of a sword. Pain, lancing through him like lightning, like a blade made of fire. His fingers trembled; He could barely breathe. There was a moment of unbearable silence, a growing light before him, and Lux tried to form his lips around the words that would end it, a prayer, a plea—

Sharp claws dug into his neck, and Lux woke to find large, black eyes staring into his. Murdercake trilled and flexed her paws, kneading Lux’s face, and he pushed himself to his elbows. The cat oozed off him like a small, fluffy flan and thumped to the floor, where she cried with the querulous mewl of a starving kitten at her last breath. 

“Okay,” Lux said. His hands shook as he pulled the covers aside. “I got you.”

The ache in his chest lingered as he stumbled through his new apartment. It was like he was still stuck in the dream, suspended, waiting for the last blow, and he had to make three attempts just to turn the kitchen light on. Kibble spilled over the cats’ bowl when he fumbled with the bag, and he finally slumped against the kitchen counter, drawing his knees up to his chest. Cookie placed a paw on his knee and sniffed his face, curious at the salt that stained his cheeks, and Lux unbent enough to accept an armful of purring, well-fed fluff. 

He wasn’t dead. He was in his new kitchen, with two Crownsguard uniforms hanging up in his dresser and a job guarding one of the Heroes of Eos. In a few weeks, he’d be eighteen, and the dreams would stop for a while. They always did. It only got worse now, close to the new year, when the streets bristled with carts selling fireworks and people strung up lights between their houses, mimicking the starlit sky. Maybe his subconscious hated the thought that the Dawn festival always overtook his birthday. Maybe he was just fucked-up somehow, dreaming of death on the eve of the new year. 

“Guess I’m not sleeping much again this time,” he told Cookie, and leaned his head against the counter with a sigh. “Let’s hope Ignis doesn’t notice.”

 

\---

 

Ignis noticed. It took him a week or so to catch on that Lux wasn’t as talkative as usual, no longer piping up with unwanted advice on how little Ignis ate or how short his breaks were, no clever little comments on the robotic sound of Ignis’ text-to-audio program. He didn’t fidget as much, choosing to just lean against the wall when they weren’t walking through the Citadel, and one afternoon, when Ignis was piecing together a difficult revision, he could have sworn he drifted off. 

So far, if Lux was under anyone’s influence, he didn’t show it. None of the false reports Ignis laid in his way appeared on the tongues of foreign diplomats, and the guards assigned to watch him claimed that Lux’s routine was fairly regular, even if he did seem to avoid the main street on his way home. Ignis listened to Lux’s steady breathing for a moment, then coughed, concerned to note the startled way Lux shuffled to attention.

“Are you unwell?” he asked. “If you’re feeling poorly, you should go home. We aren’t so hard up that—“

“No, sir,” Lux said. “No, I’m fine. I just... The fireworks kind of keep me up.”

“Ah.” Ignis couldn’t very well forget how close they were to the Dawn festival. The entire city was in the thick of it, transforming Main Street into a gallery of paper suns and lanterns, with lights shaped like stars twining around lampposts and traffic poles. He sighed and pushed his visor further up his nose. “It is rather a spectacle. It should be over soon enough.”

“That’s what I’m hoping.”

A strange response, for a man raised at the gates of Insomnia. Ignis raised his one good eyebrow. “You don’t celebrate?”

“Sort of,” Lux said. He sounded supremely uncomfortable, shifting one foot against the rug. “It always feels a little off, you know?”

“I don’t believe I do.”

“It’s the night he died.” Lux’s voice was low, heavy with exhaustion, and for an instant, he sounded so familiar that Ignis had to force himself not to clench his hands on the desk. “I know he wouldn’t want people to be sad about it, but—“

“No one knows what Noct would have wanted.” Ignis’ voice came out harder than he meant it to, colder. Lux was silent for a moment. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, and straightened, his shirt scraping against the wall. “I won’t mention it again.”

The night of the Dawn ceremony approached with all the subtlety of a train loosed from its moorings, and Ignis, after half a day of listening to listless, half-aware clerks and distracted Council members, ordered everyone to go home and take the afternoon off. Even Lux obeyed, dragging his feet down the marble hall, leaving Ignis to the privacy of an empty Citadel. Prompto and Gladio were both scheduled to make appearances in the city, and after so many years of wheedling and bribing, knew better than to ask Ignis along.

So he opened the far window of his office and stepped out onto the balcony, sitting back on a wide bench to listen to the city come to life beneath him. Music blended into a chaos of drums and guitars, early fireworks popped and cracked, and everywhere was the roar of the crowd, rising and falling like the tide at Galdin. 

Someone knocked on the window, and Ignis reached for the knife strapped to his side. “Sir? I-ignis?”

Gods, it was only Lux. No. Ignis pushed aside the relief, trying to maintain a suitable level of caution. He kept his hand close to the hilt of his knife and turned his head slightly. “I thought I sent you home.”

“Yeah, I had to feed the cats.” Lux stepped through the open window and onto the balcony. Something clinked heavily, and Ignis reached out to feel the cool, smooth surface of a tray being lowered to the side table. “Murdercake keeps trying to attack the fireworks. Anyways, I brought you something.”

Ignis ran his fingers over the tray. Two plastic clamshells, a warm box, a can of… yes, that _felt_ like Ebony. Ignis frowned. He didn’t think Lux was the type to try for poison, but all the same…

“I raided the food trucks,” Lux said. “Chocolate cake with raspberries, some kind of curry, I think, and Ebony, ‘cause I know you have a thing for that.”

“I used to,” Ignis said. “I hear it’s bad for your heart, these days.” He popped the can anyways. “Thank you. This was… thoughtful.”

“Didn’t like the idea of you sitting through it alone,” Lux said. He hovered by the bench, a cool shadow against the sun. “Can I?”

“Be my guest.”

Lux sat. His shoulder was close enough that if Ignis shifted his weight, they were pressed together, the thin cotton of Lux’s shirt grating against Ignis’ tailored button-up. Ignis took a risk and tried the curry, which was passable, and smiled when he heard Lux prop his feet on the balcony railing. 

“It’s nice from here,” Lux said. “All those people… Someone down there made this massive head shaped like a sun, right, and there are all these folks with ribbons like a sunrise, movin’ around them. Don’t know what it looks like down there, but it’s like, I dunno, a whirlpool or something.”

It struck Ignis that Lux wasn’t nearly so careful with his accent, lately. Sleepless nights led to a thicker drawl, it seemed, but it was almost welcome. It was harder, this way, to recognize the familiar tone of his voice, the words that could have come from the lips of another. “Did you have anything like this in Hammerhead?”

“Ms. Aurum went nuts with the fireworks,” Lux said, with a shrug. “But she made everyone shut up a few minutes before the sun rose. Said to be respectful.”

Ignis smiled. Cindy had a kind heart—It made sense that she would take a moment to remember Noctis, even while the rest of the world turned him into a convenient myth.

“I hated it,” Lux said. Ignis sat up. “The silence. It always felt like… Like I was holding my breath, but I couldn’t get it back again. I panicked. And it was so humiliating, you know, havin’ to be dragged off somewhere because you couldn’t breathe right, couldn’t _move,_ and then the whole night’s ruined for everyone. Again.”

“It doesn’t sound like you could help it,” Ignis said. “I’m sure they understood.”

Lux was silent. They sat there for a while longer, just listening to the city, slowly working their way through Lux’s haul from the food trucks. Lux cleared it away when they were done, then settled back at Ignis’ side, no longer keeping the bare half inch of space between them. 

It was easy, being with Lux. Distressingly easy. It felt natural, like Ignis wasn’t sitting with a stranger at all, as though he were an old friend content to just relax in companionable silence. What little Ignis could detect of the sun faded, and a cheer from the crowd below heralded the coming of night.

“They’re bringing out the daemons,” Lux whispered. “People dressed like red giants, that kind of thing.”

“Rather tactless,” Ignis murmured. Lux’s chin rested on his shoulder, and he felt the silken touch of hair falling down his back. “Don’t fall asleep, now. You’ll miss the fireworks.”

“Not sleepin’,” Lux said, though his thick drawl seemed to indicate otherwise. “Never sleep on my birthday.”

Oh, gods, he was right. Ignis jostled him, and Lux rubbed at his face. “I’m sorry, I should have congratulated you before. But… why exactly…”

“Nightmare,” Lux said. “Maybe it’s all the festival food.”

“Only the one?” Dread crept up Ignis’ back, a chill that raised the hairs at the back of his neck. 

“Yeah.” Lux yawned. “I’m in a chair, and people are.” His jaw clicked. “Tryin’ to kill me. Weird shit, right? Sorry, I shouldn’t be talkin’ so much.”

Ignis took his arm. “What’s the chair like?”

“I dunno. A chair. Heavy. Up high, with these steps on either side…”

Ignis sat very still. Above them, there was a crack like thunder as a firework burst over the city, and the crowd swelled in a shout of delight. Ignis could feel the beat of his heart hammering in his chest. 

“Lux,” he said, in a voice nearly swallowed by the rapid pop of fireworks. “I believe there’s something I need to show you.”

 

\---

 

“How much,” Ignis said, as he and Lux stepped into the staff elevator, “do you know about King Noctis’ journey?”

“A little.” The air of the elevator felt stale, every clank and groan of its workings made louder through the absence of music. “Takka said you guys were flat broke when you showed up at Hammerhead. Didn’t even know what a gil was. Then there was the, uh, the Titan, Ramuh, the Leviathan, and someone else. A woman who kept following you around.”

Ignis’ stomach twisted. “Anything of their time after Altissia?”

“Only that it was horrible,” Lux said. “Sorry. I mean, you lived it, so you’d know.”

“It wasn’t ideal.”

Lux let out a short, breathy laugh, then started as the elevator jerked to a halt. “Sir?” His voice echoed as the doors opened to a large, dry basement, lined with concrete and stacked with boxes. “I thought we were going…”

Ignis touched his elbow, guiding him forward. Their footsteps clacked on the dusty floor, and Ignis smelled old wood, cloth, the faint scent of cleaning solution. He didn’t bother taking out his cane, this time. 

He knew where he was going.

“We lost something in Niflheim,” he said. Lux was shaking under his touch. For an instant, Ignis considered turning around, sending the poor man home, but he resolutely stepped forward, towing him along. “A few years after the Dawn, we called in some favors to retrieve it. I can’t say why—Sentimentality, perhaps. But I couldn’t bear to let it rust.”

He held out his free hand. It pushed against a coarse sheet, and he gripped a handful of it in his fist, pulling it back. Lux stiffened as the sheet fell in great folds at Ignis’ feet, and lurched towards what lay beneath. 

“Oh, gods.” His voice was strained to breaking, and Ignis heard the click of a door opening. “How did you…”

Ignis reverentially lay a palm on the hood of the Regalia, lips quirked in a wan smile. “We offered Cindy a king’s ransom to rebuild it,” he said. “It doesn’t run, but—“

“But it was totaled,” Lux said. He climbed in, the seats groaning as he slid into the driver’s seat. “The Nifs destroyed it, there was just—the hood was on _fire!_ ”

Ignis didn’t mention that no one, not even Cindy, knew the cause of the wreck. He leaned against the side of the car, head down, listening to Lux slide his hands over the wheel like a man approaching a new, alien creature. 

“Wrecked three times and it’s still standing,” Lux said. “You know… you know I was, gods, when I was a kid and I couldn’t sleep, Dad and I used to sneak out to the garage. We’d drive around the city until I passed out, and he said I…”

Ignis stood silent as a marble column, fingers splayed on the hood. 

“I.”

Lux sat back. When he spoke again, his voice came out soft, young, and quaking with dawning terror. “I don’t have a dad.”

“Lux.” Ignis reached out, hand hovering over Lux’s shoulder. Lux didn’t pull away, and he stepped around the open door. 

“I _don’t have a dad,_ ” Lux said. His breath hitched, and his back spasmed under Ignis’ touch, shoulders hunching forward. “I don’t have _anyone._ I can’t remember a dad who, who drove me around Insomnia and kept candy in the cup holder when I grew up in _Hammerhead._ My parents didn’t want me. They didn’t own a car that, they didn’t—I’m not.”

“I’m sorry,” Ignis said. “Perhaps this is too much at once. I can take you back.” 

“No.” The vehemence in Lux’s voice was startling. “No, I can’t. I need a minute. Can you… get in? Just for a second?”

Ignis made to step around the hood, and Lux interrupted breathlessly. “No. Behind the wheel. I’ll move over.”

Slowly, certain that he’d crossed a line somewhere that neither of them could return to, Ignis sidled into the driver’s seat. His hands found the wheel with a memory that lay in his bones rather than his mind, bare palms caressing the leather, and he sighed deeply. Lux watched him for a minute, his breath harsh, and leaned forward to gingerly take his visor off. 

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, that looks right.”

“Noct,” Ignis said. 

“Don’t call me that.”

Lux sat there for a solid minute, just breathing, his gaze on Ignis almost a physical pull. Ignis turned his head towards him and waited. 

At last, Lux slid his hand over Ignis’. He was still shaking, but it wasn’t so strong as before, and when Ignis pulled him into his side, he sank into the warmth of him without question. 

“When I was new to the Citadel,” Ignis said. “I made friends with the prince.” He felt Lux’s hand on his, clasping tight like a man drowning. “He used to come to this car when he was fighting with his father or upset with his nanny. He’d raise the hood and curl up in the backseat, and when I came down to check on him, he really had to think about it before he let me come in.”

“What an asshole.”

“Ah, well. We were young.” Ignis wrapped an arm around Lux’s shoulders. “And for a while, before the years of Ruin, this was our home. It was all we had left of Insomnia to come back to.”

Lux took an unsteady breath. 

“If it were true,” Ignis said, “What we suspect… I wouldn’t want your only memory to be of pain. I wanted it to be this. Something good, something grounding. I’m sorry if I pushed too soon.”

Lux’s fingers twitched. Ignis shifted, and Lux moved with him, sliding sideways almost onto his lap. Hurriedly, Ignis propped him up again, but it was clear that, through exhaustion or stress, or likely some mixture of both, Lux was well and truly out of it. Ignis sighed and stretched his legs out, adjusting Lux to lie more comfortably against him, while outside the crowds cheered on the coming dawn, oblivious to the young king who lay in Ignis Scientia’s arms.

 

\---

 

For the first time in eighteen years, Lux slept through his birthday without a nightmare. 

His dreams were of driving. Sitting on the back of the Regalia, one leg bent, tapping his foot on the leather seat while Gladio read a philosophy book below him. Prompto was deeply sunburned already, his freckles dark on pink skin, and Ignis stopped every now and then to glance at him through the rearview mirror. 

Ignis’ eyes were a smoky green, almost blue in the right light, and Lux loved him. 

_Noct_ loved him. 

It was the sunlight that woke Lux, a bar of it crossing his face to shine directly in his eyes. He blinked heavily, and rolled in a thick, downy comforter that didn’t feel at all like the cheap throw he used at home—

He sat up, suddenly wide awake, and got a full view of a painting on the wall of one of the Citadel guest rooms. It was bland, forgettable, something with smudgy flowers and a mountain in the background, but Lux stared at it as though it were a portrait of the Infernian himself, running through the last night’s events piece by piece. 

“Fuck me,” he said. “I had a breakdown in front of the Governor of Lucis.”

Ignis must have carried him there. Lux climbed out of bed, scowling at his clothes—the same ratty chocobo carnival tee-shirt he’d changed into when he came home the other day—and almost tripped over his boots. He bent to shove them on, never mind how filthy his socks must be after sleeping in them all night, when someone knocked on the door. 

“Lux? I heard a noise. Are you alright?”

Lux made a choked sort of gurgle in the back of his throat. “Uh huh.”

The door opened, revealing Ignis Scientia in what he probably thought were casual clothes. They were fitted perfectly for his tall, slender frame, made of some kind of draping, watery cloth like silk or satin, and there were coeurl patterns on the legs that really, honestly should have been incredibly tacky on literally anyone else. But Ignis stood firm as he had in the newspapers Lux used to sigh over, back at Hammerhead, just as regal and self-assured as all of Lux’s embarrassingly detailed daydreams.

_Except,_ said a small, unfamiliar voice in the back of Lux’s mind, _This is the same guy who made puns about bananas and high-fived himself when no one else laughed._

“I took the liberty of ordering us breakfast,” Ignis said. He faltered, and the perfect, well-put-together image wavered a little. If Lux squinted, he could just see the hint of a shadow growing on his cheeks. “If you’d like to, of course.”

Lux swallowed. He knew, with the same certainty he felt when he left Hammerhead, that this was a choice he had to make. If he stayed, that made what happened the night before real. It meant he had to examine it, to look into it, to open his mind to the possibility that _something else was in there,_ new pockets of memory that didn’t belong. Or he could leave. He could take Murdercake and Coeurl and Cookie back to Hammerhead, find a job with Cindy or with the Hunters, and get used to the nightmares, the uneasiness, the nagging feeling that something was missing. 

He still had a choice. 

“Alright,” he said, and felt his body move across the room, only stumbling once at the foot of the bed. “I’ll stay.”


	4. Chapter 4

Emotional breakdowns and possible identity crises aside, the world still had to turn, the government had to function, and cats needed to be fed. Lux left the Citadel around noon, a little dazed and unsteady on his feet, and reached the front gates to find Prompto Argentum waiting for him. 

No one really knew what Prompto _did._ He wasn’t a member of the Council. He trained some of the Crownsguard in scouting and shooting drills, and Lux saw him darting about the Citadel like a cheery, wiry sort of butterfly, but no one he asked could give him a solid answer as to what his job description was. He was just Prompto, Hero of Eos and knight of the last king, and that was good enough for pretty much everyone. 

Now, Prompto lay a hand on Lux’s back and walked him to the bike rack. “I’ll walk with you,” he said. He gave Lux a sideways glance. “Iggy briefed us last night. Said you might be feeling, you know.” He made an incomprehensible sound through gritted teeth, which somehow managed to convey exactly what was going on in Lux’s brain. 

“Did he say it in those words?” Lux asked. 

“Well, no. That’s me translating.” Prompto handed Lux his bike and started off, walking in a sure line right towards Willow Street. “He was kind of freaked out about it.”

“Really? Didn’t seem that way to me.” Lux tripped after him. The trees were already starting to brown along the sidewalk, bushes gone bright red and gold, mimicking the sunrise that most of the city stayed up to watch. “He had it all together. He always does.”

“He has to,” Prompto said. “It’s kind of his job. But no, he was definitely panicking. Has been ever since I suggested it, I think.” Lux stared at him, and Prompto rolled his eyes. “Come on, kid. Born when Noct died, looks just like him, threw his sword across the room during training last week—“

“Oh gods, you saw that?”

“Everyone did. Me and Gladio cracked up, it was great. And I don’t know, there’s something about you.” He tilted his head, scratching his trim beard. “You fit. Noctis-shaped hole, Noctis-shaped Lux.”

Lux suppressed a shudder. If it was true, what did it mean? That Lux was a temporary placeholder until Noctis’ memories returned? He was just what, keeping his body warm until the chosen king could inhabit him? If he _was_ King Noctis, like Ignis and Prompto—and probably Gladio—believed, then why would they care about the overenthusiastic punk kid from Hammerhead, who grew up eating tinned meat and knew all the folk songs the Hunters played when the sun went down? What reason did they have to give a shit about the guy who wanted to be Crownsguard since he was six, when somewhere inside him was the king they all lost?

And if the ridiculous _thing_ Lux had for Ignis Scientia was going nowhere before, it definitely wasn’t going anywhere as the guy everyone said Ignis thought of as a brother.

“Kinda quiet there,” Prompto said. 

_Noctis-shaped Lux,_ he thought, gazing up at the branches overhead.

“Don’t worry,” Lux said. “I’m good.”

 

\---

 

The trip to Hammerhead was Gladio’s idea, which meant, among other things, that it would be his particular brand of disaster. The years had been kind to Ignis, on the whole: He still trained at the gym, of course, but his body had long sense started to cash checks he’d written in his teens, and he enjoyed the certainty of a warm bed in the evening. But Gladio had it all planned; They’d check with the leadership of the outlying towns beyond Insomnia, then retreat to the haven just beyond Hammerhead, where they used to hole up in their twenties. He even had his old camping gear dusted off for the occasion, and Prompto informed Ignis quietly, with a helpless shrug, that Gladio hadn’t looked so excited in years. 

“The Citadel’s too classy for him,” he said, conveniently out of Gladio’s hearing. “Let the old guy have a mid-life crisis or two.”

Lux responded to the news with a little trepidation, but one of the other guards offered to watch his apartment, so there was nothing he could say. They all piled into a Crownsguard vehicle together, Prompto at the wheel, and Lux sat in the back, next to Ignis. 

“We’ll stop at the old homestead first,” Gladio said, when the car chugged through the gates of Insomnia. “Unless you _don’t_ wanna visit Hammerhead?”

“Uh, no, that’s…” Lux cleared his throat. “Y’all are the ones on the Council. Kinda weird to ask my advice, you know?”

There was a short pause. “Guess so,” Gladio said. “But this is for you, too.”

Lux withdrew. Ignis recognized that silence: It was one Noct employed most of his early life, when he was displeased but didn’t want to let anyone in on it. Gladio was already aware that something was off, so he just grunted and flipped open a book, but Ignis lay his hand flat on the seat between them, an offering. 

“You can always say no,” he whispered. 

Lux didn’t answer. 

Cindy was already up when they pulled in to the Hammerhead garage, walking over to the door to rap on the window. “Howdy, fellas. Been a while!”

“Cindy!” Gladio heaved himself out of the car, and Ignis heard the slap of Cindy’s hands on his back. “You haven’t aged a day.”

“And you’ve aged a million. Holy hell, handsome, what’d you do with your hair?”

“You don’t like it?”

Prompto made a derisive noise for Ignis’ benefit; Gladio’s newest lover had a fondness for braids, which had only gotten more elaborate the longer Gladio let his hair grow out. It was about as hopeless as waiting for Prompto to shave off his beard, and the others on the Council had long since given up trying to convince him otherwise.. 

“And who’s this?” Cindy asked. “Naw. Naw, it ain’t. Dawn! C’mere, babydoll, our little Lux joined the _Crownsguard!_ ”

“Hey, Ms. Aurum,” Lux said, in the voice of an echo at Ignis’ back. He was pulled past him, and frantic footsteps pattered on the asphalt, followed by the crack of a hand on cloth. “Ow! What the hell, Dawn?”

“You didn’t call us once, you—!” This voice was lighter, and there was another smack, softer this time. “You know how worried we were?”

“Damn, Dawn, I ain’t a kid no more.”

“Like hell you ain’t!” Prompto held back a snicker, and the woman’s voice softened. “Shit. Sorry, I guess he’s on the clock, huh?”

“Yeah,” Lux said, “which means _I_ can take _your_ ass to—“

“Quiet, Lux,” Cindy said. 

“Yes’m,” Lux said, and retreated to Ignis’ side. Ignis patted Lux gently on the shoulder. 

“Cindy’s taken after her grandfather a bit, hasn’t she?” he whispered. Lux coughed. 

“Don’t let her hear you say that.”

To say that witnessing Lux’s return to Hammerhead was bizarre was a minor understatement. Lux was bombarded with fellow orphans throughout their visit, yanked aside by people with names like Aurora “lightfingers” Lily and “Crush,” who had no problem yelling out private details of Lux’s early life to anyone who could listen. Someone even tried to drag him off to a group of people smoking behind the diner, and only Prompto’s timely intervention prevented him from disappearing entirely. 

When they made it to the haven, Lux collapsed on the stone with a sigh. 

“Popular, huh?” Gladio said. Lux groaned.

“Only ‘cause I left,” he said. “It’s that boring out here. Two years ago, none o’ them woulda looked at me twice. I was just, you know. The runaway. Still am, I guess.”

“Help me with this tent, N—Lux,” Gladio said. “You run off a lot as a kid?”

Lux dragged himself to his feet and set about to wrestling with tent poles. “Kind of. Mostly went out here. Used to fill in the runes with chalk, try to set up a fire, that kind of thing. The Hunters kept finding me, though.” He grunted and dropped the poles. “Holy shit, Gladio, is this the same tent? Do you let go of anything?”

“You remember it?” 

There was a moment of quiet, disrupted only by Ignis and Prompto setting up the camp stove. 

“I remember that bugs always got in,” Lux said, after a while. “And you left your cards everywhere.”

“Sounds about right,” Gladio admitted. “Then you’ll remember how to set it up. Come on, kid, peg, hole, hammer. Get to work.”

Lux grumbled, but got to it anyway, cursing softly as he hammered the stakes. Ignis leaned in to Prompto’s ear. 

“Obedient, isn’t he?” he asked. 

“More than Noct was.” Prompto said, and Ignis frowned, listening to the short curses coming from the tent.

By the time camp was set up and Ignis’ attempt at mother and child curry doled out, most of their number were too exhausted to talk. They skirted around Lux’s memories like a Hunter edging around a Zu, never quite addressing it, but keeping it behind their words, in long silences and every hesitant pause. In the end, Lux left first, politely asking permission to be added to the last shift of the watch roster, and Ignis and the others were left sitting around the fire, his absence a vast pit between them. 

Ignis drew second watch, that night. He sat at the edge of the haven, listening to the scuff of small animals in the underbrush, hands in his lap. Crickets sang in the sage, lizards skittered about, wind howled high over the cliff that hid the adamantoise… and behind him, the flap of the tent slowly lifted. 

He waited until Lux was almost to the edge of the haven before he spoke. 

“Lux.”

There was a short intake of breath. 

“Falling back into old habits?” Ignis asked, and Lux stopped, feet shuffling in the dust. 

“Just going out for… Just.” Lux sighed, and Ignis patted the stone beside him. 

“Sit,” he said. “I believe it’s time we had another talk.”

 

\---

 

The desert at night was always colder than tourists expected, early winter descending from a sky that wheeled with stars, but the campfire was high when Lux turned his back to it. The heat at his neck made the chill of the wind that much sharper, and Lux closed his eyes as Ignis Scientia gathered his thoughts beside him.

"Do the memories hurt you?" Ignis asked, and Lux jerked awake. Ignis was facing him slightly, though his eyes were hidden by his visor, and strands of his pomped-up hair were spilling over his forehead. Lux wanted to reach out and push them back. His fingers itched at his side.

"There's no pain," he said.

"That wasn't what I asked." Ignis' smile was wry, and Lux was struck with a memory of him laughing at a kitchen counter, hair in his face, tossing mushrooms in a pan. Lux was looking up at him from a couch, and he wanted him. Gods, he wanted him. His whole body burned with it. But there was something else there, a knot in his throat that held the words back, even with Ignis smiling and narrowing his eyes in a look that could almost be fond.

"Sort of," Lux said. "It's... I'm remembering a lot, now. Bits and pieces." He looked up at the vast, brilliant stars. "Not enough to be who you want, yet."

He didn't have to look to know Ignis was bristling. "It's okay," he said, before he could say anything. "I know. Y'all are waiting around for Noct to come back, but right now there's this guy in the way."

"Is that what's happening?" Ignis asked. "Is Noctis... pushing you out?"

At their feet, an iguana scuttled across the sand. Ignis heard it coming and raised his knees a few inches. "Nah," Lux said. "But you want him to."

"No." Ignis' nails dug into the dust. "It would be unspeakably cruel for Noctis to return at the expense of another."

"You still want him, though," Lux said, pushing on despite the pink flush in Ignis' cheeks, the stiffness of his spine. "All of y'all do. It's why we're here. Y'all thought that camping would bring him back, remind me of who I used to be. And sure, I remember. I remember plenty, more every day, but I also remember growing up out there," he pointed to the lights of Hammerhead, "with Takka and Ms. Aurum and the others. You're so busy mourning Noctis, y'all don't think there might be someone around to mourn me?"

Ignis leaned back, lifting his head to a passing breeze, while the indignation in Lux's voice have way to rapidly increasing embarrassment. He could count on one hand the number of times he'd spoken out like that to someone who wasn't from Hammerhead, and even his memories of Noctis were full of terse words and long silences.

"When I tripped over a young man sitting in front of the throne room," Ignis said at last, "I didn't ask him to a test of his strength because I thought he was Noctis. I did because, well, he was being impertinent, and I wanted to see if his perseverance would falter when faced with an obstacle."

"You impressed me, Lux," Ignis added. "And you're... Gods, you're so earnest that it's frankly exhausting. Noct was never the type to fidget and bounce when he had an eight hour shift to look forward to. He certainly never called anyone sir." Ignis ran a hand through his hair. "You're right, though. We do miss him. More than I can express. But I already lost a friend in exchange for the dawn. I won't let someone else be lost in exchange for him."

Lux took a long, shivery breath. "He's here, though," he said. "I mean, I'm here. Shit, this is confusing."

Ignis smiled softly. "To say the least. I'm sorry, Lux, for my part in this."

"Would've happened eventually, I guess," Lux muttered. "Apparently, I even look like him. How'd that work, anyways? Did the gods just change my face?"

"I wouldn't know," Ignis said. "I've long since ceased to ask the gods for anything. The results are... Not always pleasant. But we can fix one thing, at least. May I touch you?"

Lux blushed furiously. "What? Where?"

"Just your face. To see if it's true."

Lux tried to breathe. He could feel his cheeks warming at the thought, treacherously pink already, but he braced himself and nodded. "Okay."

Ignis' touch was light on Lux's skin. He traced over his cheekbones, his eyes, the line of his jaw. He ignored Lux's lips completely, which Lux wasn't sure was a blessing or a curse. Finally, all too soon, he pulled back.

"Your nose," he said. "And your jaw is less round, I believe."

"Broke my nose when I was ten," Lux said. He only sounded a little breathless. "And hey, maybe I just eat less."

"Maybe so." Ignis shrugged. "But there's a difference all the same."

Lux stared at Ignis. If his new, scattered memories were right, Noct... past Lux had been as hopelessly into him as present Lux. So why didn't he say anything? Why did he go to his death without a word? And how much of Lux's own attraction was just his memories bleeding through?

Did it make any of them less real?

"We have a meeting in Galdin to attend tomorrow," Ignis said, shaking Lux out of his thoughts. "But perhaps afterwards, if you are amenable, we can change this. We're none of us the same men we were twenty years ago. So let's have a proper introduction, this time around." He extended a hand. "Good evening. My name is Ignis Scientia, sometime governor of Lucis."

"Lux," Lux said, taking his hand. "Crownsguard."

"Pleased to meet you." Ignis squeezed his fingers, then let go. "I look forward to becoming better acquainted."

This time, when Lux smiled, it finally felt natural. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, me too."


	5. Chapter 5

“Gods, I feel old,” Gladio said a few days later, when the four of them stopped for the night in Lestallum. He and Ignis were sitting on a bench by the lookout, catching their breath as Lux, Prompto, and Iris gathered near the edge. Lux had picked up a guitar on their visit to the market, and halfway through showing Iris how to pluck through a popular folksong from the desert, he picked up an audience of attentive, slightly awed small children. Their voices piped through the wind from the Meteor, high and insistent, and he let out a mock gasp of horror.

“No, I ain’t singin’ the Oracle’s Lament,” Lux said, and there was a giggle from the crowd. “How old are y’all? Ten? Do you believe this, Ms. Amicitia? Ten years old, and already going through a goth phase.”

“Pot, kettle,” Prompto said, and yelped. 

“Sorry, don’t actually kick people, kids,” Lux said, and broke into a song about a cat who fought the Titan. 

“Kind of sad,” Gladio said, after a while. “I knew the crown was a burden on Noct, but I never… D’you think he would’ve ended up like this, if he didn’t have to be king?”

Before them, Lux had passed the guitar to Prompto, who attempted a horrifying rendition of the chocobo theme song. Lux encouraged the children to boo, which only made Prompto sing louder.

“He _did_ end up like this,” Ignis said. 

“You think Luna’s out there somewhere, too?” Gladio didn’t seem to notice the way Ignis tensed, his back gone rigid. “Doesn’t seem right, splitting them up like this. You’d think the gods would help them find each other, somehow.”

“Maybe the Oracle deserves a little rest, Gladio,” Ignis said. “Or it simply hasn’t happened yet.”

Lux hurried over to them, panting slightly, and shoved himself between Gladio and Ignis. He smelled like the steak skewers they sold in carts by the lookout, and his long hair, usually tied back, tickled Ignis’ shoulder. “Hey,” he said. “Ms… Uh, your sister wants to talk to you. Something about Mr. Hester.”

“Stop calling him that,” Gladio warned, “Or I _will_ have a midlife crisis.” He stood, leaving Ignis and Lux alone on the bench. Ignis waited for Lux to make space between them, but Lux just settled down with a sigh. 

“This is nice,” he said. “You should do it more often.” Ignis tilted his head, and he jostled his shoulder. “Get out more, I mean. It ain’t right, holing yourself up in your office like you do. You gotta live a little.”

“I can’t very well—“

“Sure you can. Never stopped you before.” Lux crossed his legs, heels thumping on the concrete. “But I guess I was always with you, back then. Who drags you outside now?”

“Iris tries,” Ignis said.

“Good for her.” Lux tapped Ignis’ foot with his, and Ignis smiled. Someone had shown mercy on the world at large and stole the guitar from Prompto, and was joined by a drummer and some poor soul on a fiddle. Lux leaned forward, his arm brushing against Ignis’, and impulsively took his hand. 

“I know this one,” he said. “Come on, dance with me.”

“You may know this,” Ignis said, lurching as Lux tugged at his hand, “But I most certainly do _not._ I haven’t danced since before the sun set, Lux, I hardly—“

“It’ll be a learning experience.” Ignis was dragged inexorably forward, and when Lux took his other hand, was surprised to find heat rising to his neck. Gods, it was as though he were twenty again, twenty and unable to stand two inches from Noct without having to spring away, muttering excuses…

“I’ll lead,” Lux said, and Ignis stepped back at the pressure of his hands, trusting him not to whirl them both into the growing crowd. He could hear them on all sides, now, chattering and laughing, their voices just lower than the reel that wound through the cool evening air. 

“You know, something I didn’t expect out of all this was how much I _know_ now,” Lux said, carefully navigating them back a step. “I always knew the desert, but now I can look at a car and think, _That was modeled after the magitech carriages of Solheim, reinvented in the late 600’s._ I can name half the old kings and most of the governors of Altissia. But there’s one thing I still don’t get.”

His left hand traveled to Ignis’ waist. “What’s that?”

“How I could fall for the same guy twice and not say a thing.”

Ignis stopped, bumping into another dancer, who went stumbling off at his side. He jerked back from Lux’s touch, heart beating so hard he could feel it in his throat, and struggled for breath. Surely he hadn’t said—hadn’t implied—

“Sorry,” Lux said. “I know you’re probably not even into guys. But Nocti—I _died,_ Ignis, I died and I never told you, even when you were standing right in front of me, the night I—“

Ignis turned. He was off balance, the world tilting under his feet, but the breeze at his back meant that he was facing the stairs. He made for them, never minding that he’d left his cane by the bench, his brain awash with panic as Lux’s footsteps clattered after him. 

“Noctis wouldn’t want to ruin your friendship,” Lux said. Astrals, Ignis could do without his trademark persistence, just this once. He quickened his pace. “I know I just did. I’m sorry. I had to… I couldn’t just… You’re crying. Oh, hell, Ig… Mr. Scientia—“

“Don’t go formal on me now,” Ignis snapped. He touched his cheek and scowled at the dampness of his fingers. “Lux, you’re young. You can’t mean to…”

“I’m just as old as you are,” Lux said. Ignis made a disapproving sound, and heard amusement in Lux’s voice. “Alright, I’m young. But I’m also… not as young as I used to be. And you ain’t exactly a grandpa. You’re what, forty-nine?”

“Old enough to be your father,” Ignis said. 

“Whatever.” Lux cleared his throat. “Stairs are at ten o clock. About five feet.”

Ignis adjusted his position and carefully walked to the stairs. He paused at the first step, well aware of Lux standing behind him, and twisted round. 

“You didn’t mean that,” he said. His own voice sounded too soft. “About our last night, before… Before our return to Insomnia.”

“I did,” Lux said. “But you didn’t say anything, either, so I figure you just… didn’t feel that way.”

The words felt like a physical blow, tipping Ignis back as he held a hand out for balance. He found Lux’s shoulder, warm and sturdy with muscle, a bare patch of skin revealed through his wide collar. Lux didn’t move. 

“I always…” Ignis swallowed thickly. “Always felt the same.”

“Even now?” Lux covered Ignis’ hand with his own. Ignis risked a tight nod, and Lux climbed up a step, drawing flush against him. He hesitated, his lips so close to Ignis’ collar that he could feel the heat of his breath, waiting for permission. 

“It’s like you said before,” Lux said. “I want to do it right this time. No more waiting.”

Ignis bowed his head, and Lux surged up on his toes to meet him.

 

\---

 

Ignis may have known better than to risk the general public catching sight of the Governor of Lucis making out with his Crownsguard in an alley, but Lux certainly didn’t. He pushed Ignis against the wall with a satisfying thump, a hand at the back of Ignis’ head just in case, and made up for his lack of height by mouthing at what he could find of his neck. He dragged his teeth along the skin, considering, and Ignis dug fingers into his hair. 

“We shouldn’t get carried away,” Ignis warned. Lux slid a hand up to Ignis’ chest, feeling the thump of his heartbeat, and slowly let his fingers trail lower, down his abdomen. 

“Seems like you’re already pretty carried away,” he said. Ignis tilted his chin a little, which Lux was starting to learn was his way of rolling his eyes. “Alright. Okay. Back to the hotel? Please?”

“Oh, no, he’s begging,” Ignis breathed. Lux grinned and pressed himself close. 

“Please, Ignis,” he said, speaking into Ignis’ neck. “Please, oh gods, pl—“ He laughed when Ignis covered his mouth with a hand, and drew back. “I get it!”

“Gods help me,” Ignis whispered. 

Lux tried to keep it together as they headed into the Leville. He tried not to let his face be a beacon, his hands linger too close to Ignis’ waist, but he caught himself reaching for his jacket as they walked up the stairs regardless. When the bedroom lock clicked behind them, Lux lifted himself up to take off Ignis’ visor and was met with a firm, immovable grip.

“I wouldn’t want you to be put off…” Ignis’ voice trailed away, weak and faltering. 

“I’ve seen you without them before,” Lux said. “Ignis. I told you. I fell for you twice.” Ignis’ grip slackened, and they lowered their hands together, revealing Ignis’ face. The one eye he could properly open was milky white, the scar puffy where it fed into tight skin, and Lux guided Ignis down so he could kiss him over his jagged brow. Ignis let out a shaky breath. 

“I’ve never—“ Ignis’ lashes fluttered when Lux kissed him again, lips tracing over his cheekbone. “Never liked them. They’re a reminder of what I couldn’t save. All that sacrifice, and in the end…”

“In the end, you’re here,” Lux said. He tasted the salt of tears on his lips, and explored the line of Ignis’ jaw. “You want to stop? Do you regret it?”

“No,” Ignis said. “I want.”

Lux waited. 

“I want this.” Ignis’ arms wrapped around Lux’s waist and picked him up off the floor. Their kisses were open-mouthed, almost desperate, their breaths quickening as they staggered together into the wall, tilting several paintings off their hooks. Lux smiled into it, lifting a leg to tug Ignis closer, hissing at the delicious friction of their bodies. 

“Shower first,” Ignis whispered, and they managed to grope their way to the private bathroom, where Lux sank to the floor while Ignis stepped onto the mat. Ignis hesitated a long moment, hands at his shirt buttons, and Lux slowly picked himself up. 

“Got it,” he said. “Privacy.”

Ignis cast him an apologetic grimace, and Lux disappeared into the bedroom. 

Lux’s turn was possibly the shortest shower he’d taken in his life. He emerged to find Ignis on the bed, wrapped in a couerl print dress-robe, and had to smile at his own naked, still dripping state. When he climbed onto the bed, Ignis’ lips twisted, and he flicked a hand through Lux’s long hair. 

“You’ve brought the shower with you,” he said. 

“Couldn’t wait,” Lux said, and kissed him, brief and hard and ecstatic. His hands twitched at the tie of Ignis’ robe, and Ignis pulled it free, face flushing as Lux sat back to take him in. His shoulders were broader than Lux thought they’d be, still well-defined and muscular, and his chest curled with hair that he was pretty sure Ignis would have waxed to hell and back when they were—when he was young. His belly was softer, his hips rounder than before, but there was still some of the lankiness of his youth there, and Lux bent to run his hands along Ignis’ inner thighs. Ignis’ breath hitched. 

“You’re fucking hot,” Lux said, and Ignis tilted his head back. “I mean it. I thought so from the beginning. You get this crease in your brow when you’re trying to hide what you’re—yeah! Yeah, there it is.” He climbed over Ignis’ body, and Ignis gasped at the slide of Lux’s cock along his leg. “Too fast?”

“Not fast enough,” Ignis said. “I wish we could go further, but…”

It was only marginally mortifying for Lux to admit, with a face so red that Ignis could probably feel it, that he did, in fact, bring lube. Not that he was expecting anything. It’s just that, well, it was going to be a long trip, so he’d thought to be prepared. 

And so Lux ended up on his knees, taking Ignis’ cock into his mouth while his slick fingers worked him open. Ignis held onto Lux for support, nails pricking his back, and Lux moaned at the shudder he felt rolling through Ignis’ body. Ignis cried out his release in a hoarse, cut-off groan, and Lux swallowed him down, his own cock hanging heavy and untouched. 

“More?” Lux rasped, holding Ignis steady with both hands. 

“Yes, gods.”

Ignis was laid out before him on the bed, his hair a mess over his eyes, his neck and chest marked by Lux’s teeth. He wrapped his legs around Lux’s back before he could even line himself up, and Lux laughed, falling forward into his arms. They lay like that for a moment, breathing hard, before Lux picked himself up again.

The first press into Ignis was overwhelming. Lux had to brace himself, going slow, too aware of how _tight_ Ignis was around him, how aware he was of every movement of his body, every rise and fall of his chest. Ignis’ breath was ragged, his mouth open, and Noct touched the scar on his lower lip and wished he’d done this sooner, wished they had more time.

But the last thing Noct ever had was 

The last thing Lux had

Lux lowered his head. He’d gone too far, letting himself sink into the yearning and fear of his prior life. Here and now, with Ignis writhing at his touch, Lux had all the time in the world.

“Move,” Ignis gasped, and Lux rolled his hips, grinning at the cry that fell from Ignis’ lips. He kept his thrusts slow, deep, and Ignis was rocking into it, lost in pleasure. He was beautiful like this. Always beautiful, even sweating and panting and making broken little sounds in his throat, his hands grasping at Lux to pull them together. 

“Ignis,” Lux said, and it came out just as cracked, a sob that wrenched its way from his throat without warning. Ignis pet his hair, traced the lines of his face, hovered lovingly over the crooked nose that was all Lux. “Ignis I… I’m sorry it… sorry it took me so long…”

Ignis held him so tight that Lux was fully sheathed in the heat of him, pounding into him in short, frantic thrusts. He bit down on Ignis’ shoulder, and Ignis came with a shout that made his ears ring. Lux let the wave of his own pleasure consume him, riding through his release with Ignis’ fingers running over his open mouth, his hair fanning out over Ignis’ chest. 

It wasn’t until Lux had rolled over, Ignis gasping in his arms, that he remembered that they’d locked Gladio and Prompto out of their rooms.


	6. Epilogue

Ignis was nineteen years old, and the world as he knew it was still certain. Insomnia’s ancient Wall reflected the stars until they multiplied a thousand-fold, lighting up the midnight sky, and Noctis Lucis Caelum, prince of Lucis and heir to a distant prophecy, sat on the edge of the roof outside his room and cracked open a can of soda. 

“Beautiful night,” he said, as Ignis climbed out his bedroom window. His phone was lodged in a shingle behind him, humming out an old song that was popular when their parents were young, and his feet dangled over the faraway street below. He shifted aside to make space for Ignis, and even though there was plenty of roof to choose from, Ignis sat beside him, their shoulders touching. 

“Everyone’s talking about graduation,” Noct said. His face was lined with starlight, his eyes glittering as they traced the panels of the Wall. “There’s a college fair on Friday—Prompto thinks he’ll apply to that vocational school, the one near the Citadel.”

“You know you can’t—“ Ignis started, and Noct flapped a hand. 

“I know,” he said. “But it’d be nice, you know? To have a choice.”

Ignis braced himself on his elbows, leaning back. “And what would you do, if you had one? Start a rescue shelter? A tutoring business?”

Noct smiled. His grin was a little lopsided, reserved, like he was always holding a small part of himself back. “I don’t know. I really don’t. Everything was planned out for me two thousand years ago, Ignis. Sometimes I think about it, but I can’t… It doesn’t work. If I became a vet, the Scourge would still be out there. Joining a band won’t stop daemons. A professor can’t light up the dark.”

Ignis looked at his back, already bowed with the weight of over a hundred rulers before him, and lifted a hand. Noct stirred at his touch, his smile faded to a faint line, and shrugged. 

“What would you do?” Noct asked. “If you could choose?”

 _I’d be here,_ Ignis thought. _With you. Always._

“Gods, what a question.” Ignis pulled his hand away. “I can’t say I ever considered it.”

“Look at us.” Noct pushed at Ignis’ shoulder. “We make a pretty weird pair, don’t we?”

There was so much Ignis could have said, then. So much they both could have said, could have done, but their destinies felt stronger than the Wall itself, shaping their lives into a single path, narrow and inevitable. So Ignis only shrugged, took a can from Noctis, and stared up at the sky, letting the music from Noct’s phone lull him into daydreams of a hazy world with no paths to guide them, no destinies to fulfill. 

Thirty-odd years later, Ignis woke in his suite of the Leville, breathing in the sharp scent of Gladio’s cologne and the to-go bag Prompto had brought in that night. They’d had a long discussion, all four of them, the first of many in this strange, new world that had unfolded over the last few hours. Lux had made it clear that so far as his past life went, the three of them were the only ones who would know. He’d live under the radar, taking care of his cats, working for the Crownsguard, lugging that massive new guitar after him everywhere he went. As far as the rest of Eos knew, the king was dead. And he was, in a way. Lux was no king, and he didn’t need to be. 

For Gladio, who had the words _your majesty_ ingrained in his heart, it was a bitter pill to swallow. It would take him time. It would take them _all_ time, and perhaps Lux most of all. 

Still, through some wild chance or divine will of the gods, time was suddenly something they had. 

The bed beside Ignis was still warm, but empty, and he could feel a breeze drifting in through the open window. He slowly eased out of bed, shuffling through the unfamiliar room, and stopped with his fingers on the windowsill. The breeze off the Disc was cool and clear, the scent of the city washed away, and when he held out a hand, he felt the resistance of Lux’s back, the silken waves of his long hair. 

“Hey,” Lux said. “Beautiful night.”

“Yes,” Ignis said, with a smile. “It is.”


End file.
